
I: \^^^ :mM: %,^^ : 







^0 O 



A 






.-^ 






-; o. 












\' -^.^ -^ -. 







4- 



■> 



»'-'■ .*^ 



o ^ * * ° ' > 






o> 



•^-0^ 













> 






;^ 



X^U. JLr^^U, 






M 



r 



."TV 



1 



MAYNARD'S 

English • Classic • Series 

*— r2i<? • 



-,—,_,— .-|_|_|_|-|_|_|_|_| 



r 






1 



<^ 



^TH E VISION 0F< 



^ 



SIR LAUNFAL 



BY 

James Russell Lowell. 

L A 



-i_i_i_i— I— I— i_i_i_i_i_i-i- 



r 



NEW YORK 

MaynarD;, Merrill 6c Co. 

43, 45 & 47 East IOIH St. 



"^ 



J 



S^W^iO«J>J I 



:WL^J^ 



la 



English classic Series. 

KELLOGG'S EDITIONS. 

Shakespeare's Plays. 

Bacb BMa^ In One Volume. 

Text Carefully Expurgated for Use in Mixed Classes. 

With Portrait, Mies, Introduction to Shakespeare's Grammar, Eu 
ination Papers and Plan of Study. 

(SELECTED.) 

By BRAINERD KELLOGG, LL.D., 

^^^^^l^L^/JH ^'>}0]ish Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Polytechnic Inst 
author of a'' Text-Book on Rhetoric," a " Text-Book onEnalishlAteratu^'' 
and one of the authors of Reed '& Kellogg's "Les7otsinEnA"' 

The notes of English Editors have been freely used: but thev have bpfln t 
ously pruned or generously added to, wherever it was thougKhey m?^^^^^ 
meet the needs of American School and College Students ^ ^ 

1.^+f ^^^ ^^P"?^^^^ ^^^^ teachers who examine these editions will pronounce i 
better adapted to the wants of the class-room than any others published T 
IIVJ^LT^^'^^'''^^'^ Editions of tkese Plays that have bein ckrel 
expurgated for use in mixed classes. c" ^<»xt3i 

Printed from large type, attractively bound in cloth, and sold at nearly one 

il jr.nifir>na /-kf SiVio1j-Qo»-K<->r...^ •' 



..X.W..V.V.. ixv/ui idigo i-^pc, aiLiacuveiy Douna m< 
the price of other School Editions of Shakespeare. 

The following Plays, each in one volume, are now ready • 



Merchant of Venice. 

Julius Caesar. 

Macbeth. 

Tempest. 

Hamlet. 

King John. 



Much Ado About 

Nothing. 
King Henry V. 
King Lear. 
Othello. 
King Henry IV., Parti. 



A Winter's Ta 
Twelfth Nighl 
Romeo and Ju 



King Henry VIII. 
Coriolanus. 
As You Like It. 
King Richard 111. 
A Midsummer- 
- - ' Night's Dream. ■ 

Ma%Ung price, SO cents per copy. Special Price to Teachers 



MiHon's Paradise Lost. Book I. With por 
trait and biographical sketch of Milton, 
and full introductory and explanatoi-y 
notes. Boards. Mailing price, SO cents. 

Wilton's Paradise Lost. Books I. and II. 
With portrait and biographical sketch 
ot Milton, and full introductory and 
explanatory notes. Bound in boards. 
Mailing price, 40 cents. 

Shakespeare Reader. Extracts from the 
flays of Shakespeare, with historical 
and explanatory notes. By C H 
Wykes. 160 pp., 16mo, cloth. Mailing 
price, S5 cents. 

Chaucer'sThe Canterbury Tales. The Pro- 
logue. With portrait and biographical 
sketch of the author, introductory and 
explanatory notes, brief history of Eng- 
lish language to time of Chaucer, and 
glossary. Boards. Mailing price, 35 cts. 

Chaucer's The Squieres Tale. With por- 
trait and biographical sketch of author, 
glossary, and full explanatory notes. 
Boards. Mailing price, S5 cents. 



Special Numbers. 



Chaucer's The Knightes Tale. With 
trait and biographical sketch of aui 
glossary, and full explanatory n- 
Boards. Mailing price, 40 cents. 

Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conq 
With biographical sketch of aut 
and full explanatory notes. Boa 
Mailing price, 30 cents. 

Homer's Iliad. Books I. and VI. ivi, 
cal translation by George Howl. 
With introduction and notes. Mai 
price, as cents. 

Homer's Odyssey. Books I., V., 
and X. Metrical translation 
OrEORGE HowLAND. With introduc 
and n otes. Mailing price, %5 cen t 

Horace's The Art of Poetry. Transk 
in verse by George Rowland. A' 
mg price, fi5 cents. 

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Edited 
Peter Parley, with introduction 
notes. 169 pp. i6mo. Linen. A 
tng price, SO cents. 



RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE ENGLISH 
CLASSIC SERIES. 



No. 120. riacaulay's Essay on Byron, with 

portrait and biographical sketch of Macaulay, portrait and bio- 
graphical sketch of Byron, critical opinions, and explanatory notes. 
Price, 12 cents. 

No. 121=122. Motley's Peter the Great, with 

biographical sketch of Motley, portrait of I'eter the Great, critical 
opinions, and explanatory notes. Double Nuuiber. Price, 24 cents. 

No. 123. Emerson's American Scholar, with 

portrait, biographical sketch of author, critical opinions of his writ- 
ings, and explanatory notes. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 124. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. with 

portrait, biographical sketch of author, critical opinions of his writ- 
ings and explanatory notes. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 125=126. Longfellow's Evangeline, with 

portrait, biographical sketch of author, critical opinions of his writ- 
ings, introduction and explanatory notes. Double Number, bound 
in cloth. Price, 24 cents. 

No. 127. Byron's Childe Harold. Canto IV. 

With portrait, biographical sketch of author, explanatory notes, etc. 
Price, 12 cents. 

No. 128. Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, 
and The Passing of Arthur, with portrait, biographical 

sketch of the author, introduction on Idyls of the King, and explan- 
atory notes. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 129. Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal, 

and other poems. With portrait, biographical sketch of the author, 
critical opinions, explanatory notes, etc. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 130. Whittier's Songs of Labor, and other 

poems. With portrait, biographical sketch of the author, critical 
opinions, explanatory notes, etc. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 131. Longfellow's The Skeleton in 

Armor, and other poems. With portrait, biographical sketch oi 
the author, critical opinions, explanatory notes, etc. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 132. Longfellow's The Belfry of Bruges, 

and other poems. With portrait, biographical sketch of the author, 
critical opinions, explanatory notes, etc. Piice, 12 cents. 

No. 133. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, 

Resignation, etc. With portrait, biographical sketch of the author, 
critical opinions, explanatory notes, etc. Price, 12 cents. 

No. 134. Longfellow's The Voices of the 

Night. With portrait, biographical sketch of the author, critical 
opinions, explanatory notes, ete. Price, 12 cents. 

In Preparation for Supplementary Reading 

in Lower Grades. 

Grimm's German Fairy Tales (Selected). /Esop's 

Fables (Selected) Arabian Nights (Selected). Ander= 

sen's Danish Fairy Tales (Selected). The Nurnberg 

Stove. By OuiDA. 

_ New Numbers will be added from time to time. 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES-No. 129. 

The Vision of Sm Launfal 

AND 

Other Poems. 



BY 

James Russell Lowell. 




AN 11 1894 






fiMiW) 3$iofira})f)i?, Critical ©pinions, antr 
3S):planator» Kotes. 



NEW YORK : 

Maynard, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 
43, 45, AND 47 East Tenth Street. 

New Series, No. 100. December 15, 1892. Published Semi-weekly. Subscripti( 
Price, $10. Entered at Post Office, New York, as Second-class Matter. 



A Complete Course in the Study of Engl 



spelling. Language, Grammar, Composition, Literati 



REED'S Word Lessons-A Complete Speller, 
Reed's Introductory Language Work. 

Reed & Kellogg's Graded Lessons in English. 
Reed & Kellogg's Higher Lessons in English. 
Reed db Kcllogg'S One-Book Course in Engli 
KELLOGG'S Text-Book on Rhetoric. 

KELLOGG'S Text-Book on English Litera 



In the preparation of this series the authors have had one c 
clearly in view — to so develop the 5tudy of the English langua 
to present a complete- progressive course, from the Spelling-Bo 
the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradic 
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on 
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the sc 
room, will be avoided by the use of the above "Complete Cours 

Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

Maynard, Merrill & Co,^ Publishers, 
43, 45 and 47 East Tenth St., New Y 



Copyright, 1893. 
By MAYNARD, MERRILL & Ca 



Life of Lowell. 

James Russell Lowell was born at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, February 22, 1819. His first American 
ancestor was Percival Lowell, who sailed from Bristol, 
England, in 1639 for the New World, and settled at New- 
bury. The descendants of Percival were respectively 
a cooper, a shoemaker, a minister, a statesman, the 
author of the clause in the Massachusetts Constitution 
abolishing slavery, and a "learned, saintly, and 
discreet " Unitarian minister, Charles Lowell, the 
father of the poet. The home of the Lowells at Cam- 
bridge was an old three-storied colonial mansion, called 
Elmwood, which had been built in 1767 by Thomas 
Oliver, the last royal Lieutenant-Governor before the 
Revolution. Here the poet was born and here he lived 
and died. 

His early education was obtained from a retired pub- 
lisher who kept a small school near Elmwood and 
instilled what classical knowledge he could into the 
small boys of the neighborhood. One of his school- 
mates has described Lowell as a quiet lad, averse to 
taking part m the rough games of the schoolboys^ and 
inordinately fond of reading. At Harvard the same 
taste was evident. He read widely, but without system. 
He was accustomed to say that at college he read almost 
everything — except the college text-books. Learning in 
its higher sense came to him later. 

In 1843 Lowell published his first volume of poems, 
which he afterwards called 

" the firstlings of my muse, 
Poor windfalls of unripe experience." 

3 



4 LIFE OF LOWELL. 

The public was not profoundly stirred by these first 
efforts of Lowell's genius, though some of his college 
friends had a deep conviction that he was inspired by a 
divine mission. The first real success, and it was a very 
real success, attained by the young poet was with the 
Biglow Papers, a series of poems in the Yankee dialect, 
dealing humorously with the great dispute over the 
slave question, which was just then at its hottest. 
Lowell was a strong abolitionist and as such was a valu- 
able ally to the reformers. Hitherto the laugh had 
been entirely at their expense, but he completely turned 
the tables, and soon the verses were jingling all over 
the country, doing good service in the great cause. 

In 1844 Lowell married Miss Maria White, of Water- 
town, near Cambridge, and for nine years lived an 
idyllic life at Elm wood. In 1853 Mrs, Lowell died. 
Her death was the occasion for one of Longfellow's most 
exquisite poems, a natural tribute between poets, 

Notwithstanding the sudden success of the Biglow 
Papers, it was not Lowell's intention to remain merely 
a writer of satire. In 1848 he wrote The Vision of Sir 
Launfal in a sort of fine frenzy; composing the whole 
poem in the space of forty-eight hours, during which he 
hardly ate or slept. This poem at once became popular 
and has remained one of the dearest literary heirlooms 
of the country. In the same year a third volume of 
poems appeared, among them some of his best. The 
Fable for Critics, a series of dashing sketches of American 
authors, was also written at this time, Lowell's critical 
judgment was nearly faultless ; many of the sketches m 
the Fable for Critics seem now almost prophetic. 

When Longfellow retired from the Harvard professor- 
ship of modern languages the authorities at once " chose 
Lowell as his most fitting successor," thus forging 



LIFE OF LOTVELL. 5 

another link in the long chain of illustrious men who 
have raised Harvard to her proud position. No profes- 
sor was ever more popular with his classes than Lowell, 
and no man was better fitted to speak on literary sub- 
jects. His lectures on Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and 
Cervantes made an ineffaceable impression on those who 
were fortunate enough to hear him. 

In 1857 Lowell married a second wife. Miss Frances 
Dunlap, of Portland, Maine, a cultivated lady who had 
undertaken the education of his daughter. 

A diplomatic appointment was a fitting tribute to a 
man of Lowell's brilliant intellectual and social qualities. 
In 1877 he was appointed minister to Spain and in 1880 
was transferred to England, where for five years he 
represented the United States with a supreme tact which 
it is safe to say has been equaled by no other modern 
diplomatist. The year 1885 saw him again settled 
among his books at Elmwood, where he lived for the 
remainder of his life, still writing and occasionally lect- 
uring. He died in 1891, sincerely mourned by all Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples. Probably no man has so endeared 
himself on both sides of the water, and the extraordinary 
honor of having a service held in his memory at West- 
minster Abbey shows the deep impress which he left on 
the hearts of (he English people. With us he will 
always be one of the great fixed stars in the firmament 
of American letters. 



Critical Opixioks. 

In the few words of sympathetic criticism to wliicli 
Mr. Lowell gave utterance at the Gray Memorial cere- 
mony at Cambridge [University, England], he remarked, 
though in no disparaging way, on the extent to which 
the element of the "commonplace" in Gray's most 
famous poem had contributed to its world-wide popular- 
ity. It is to the lack of this quality in Mr. Lowell's own 
verse that it owes, one may suspect, its comparatively 
narrow circle of admirers. The American poet whom 
all Englishmen know, and than whom few Englishmen 
know other, was assuredly master of this, not " golden," 
but plain, serviceable locksmith 's-metal key to the 
popular heart. It need not be said — it would, indeed, 
be foolish to say it — in a sneering spirit, but the element 
of commonplace in Longfellow, the precipitate of salts 
insoluble in poetry which one finds at the bottom of that 
pellucid verse, is extraordinarily large ; and the average 
reader who prizes his poetry for the solid residuum it 
leaves behind it, after its purely poetic qualities have 
disappeared through the not very fine-meshed strainer 
of his imagination, appraises his Longfellow accordingly. 
The knack of infusing this ingredient into his poetry in 
the proportion approved of by the popular palate did 
not come naturally to Mr. Lowell and he has never 
acquired it. His poetic faculty, as we trace it through 
some thirty years of productive effort, shares the healthy 
growth of a healthy mind, but has never developed that 
useful form of adipose tissue which serves, at the 
expense no doubt of the higher quality of beauty, to 
keep warm the poetry — and the poet. On the other 
hand, it is but just to Mr. Lowell to add that he has 
not allowed his verse to run, in revenge, into that angu- 
larity of manner which too many poets not accepted by 
the multitude are wont to cultivate of malice prepense — 
the overstrained protest of classic severity of outline 
against the too buxom contours of the "popular " muse. 

6 



CRITICAL OPINIONS. 7 

Mr. Lowell's poetry lias simply gone on perfecting itself 
in form and finish, until now lie is as complete a speci- 
men of "a literary man's poet," of the consummate 
artist in expression, — whom the lover of the art of ex- 
pression is hard put to it to judge impartially, from 
sheer delight in his workmanship, — as it would be easy 
to find in a summer day's hunt through a well-filled 
library. 

It is not difficult to trace the literary influences which 
have molded this highly-wrought, this artless-artful 
poetic manner. In the introduction to the Biglow 
Papers Mr. Lowell observes with pride that the nine- 
teenth-century New Englander "feels more at home 
with Fulke Greville, Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, 
George Herbert, and Browne, than with his modern 
English cousins." — H. D. Traill, Fortnightly Review. 

Probably no American student was so deeply versed 
in the old French romance, none knew Dante and the 
Italians more profoundly ; German literature was 
familiar to him, and perhaps even Ticknor in his own 
domain of Spanish lore was not more a master than 
Lowell. The whole range of English literature, not 
only its noble Elizabethan heights, but a delightful 
realm of picturesque and unfrequented paths were his 
familiar park of pleasance. Yet he was not a scholarly 
recluse, a pedant, or a bookworm. The student of books 
was no less so acute and trained an observer of nature, 
so sensitive to the influences and aspects of out-of-door 
life that as Charles Briggs with singular insight said 
that he was meant for a politician, so Darwin with frank 
admiration said that he was born to be a naturalist. — 
George William Curtis. 

There is a beautiful feeling in Lowell's poems of 
Nature. Wordsworth has dwelt upon the contrast 
between the youthful regard for Nature, — the feeling of 
a healthy and impassioned child, — and that of the phi- 
losopher who finds in her a sense "of something far 



8 CRITICAL OPINIONS. 

more deeply interfused." The latter is a gift tliat makes 
us grave. It led Bryant to worship and invocation ; and 
now, in the new light of science, we seek for, rather 
than feel, the soul of things. The charm of Lowell's 
outdoor verse lies in its spontaneity ; he loves Nature 
with a childlike joy, her boon companion, finding even 
in her illusions welcome and relief, — just as one gives 
himself up to a story or a play, and will not be a 
doubter. Here he never ages, and he beguiles you and 
me to share his joy. It does me good to see a poet who 
knows a bird or flower as one friend knows another, yet 
loves it for itself alone. 

I think, also, that The Vision of Sir Launfal owed 
its success quite as much to a presentation of Nature as 
to its misty legend. It really is a landscape-poem, of 
which the lovely passage, "And what is so rare as a day 
in June ? " and the wintry prelude to Part Second, are 
the specific features. Like the Legend of Brittany, it 
was a return to poetry as poetry, and a sign that the 
author was groping for a theme equal to his reserved 
strength. 

Lowell, then, is a poet who seems to represent New 
England more variously than either of his comrades. 
We find in his work, as in theirs, her loyalty and moral 
purpose. She has been at cost for his training, and he, 
in turn, has read her whole heart, honoring her as a 
mother before the world, and seeing beauty in her com- 
mon garb and speech. To him, the Eastern States are 
what the fathers, as he has said, desired to found, — no 
New Jerusalem, but a New England, and, if it might 
be, a better one. His poetry has the strength, the 
tenderness, and the defects of the Down-East temper. 
His doctrines and reflections, in the midst of an ethereal 
distillation, betimes act like the single drop of prose 
which, as he reports a saying of I^andor to Wordsworth, 
precipitates the whole. But again he is all poet, and 
the blithest, most unstudied songster on the old Bay 
Shore. — Edmund Clakence Stedman, (Jentury Mag. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 

And Other Poems. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

Note by the Author.— According to the mythology of the 
Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of 
which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was 
brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained 
there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years 
in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon 
those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and 
deed ; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the 
Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite en- 
terprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. 
Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read 
in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. 
Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most 
exquisite of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to any thing so slight) of the 
following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have en- 
larged the circle of competition in seaich of the miraculous cup 
in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the 
heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent 
to the date of King Arthur's reign. 

Prelude to Part First. 

Over his keys the musiug organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay : 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 

Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 

9 



10 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

Not only around our infancy 
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie : 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 5 

We Sinais climb and know it not ; 
Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies ; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 10 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 
Still shouts the inspiring sea. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 15 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 20 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 
Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking ; 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking ; 
There is no price set on the lavish summer, 25 

And June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 30 

12. druid wood. An oak grove was the favorite temple of 
the Druids, the ancient priests of Britain. 

13. benedicite. Blessing, benediction. 



THE VISION OP SIR LAUNFAL. 11 

"Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and tow^ers, 
And, grasping blindly above it for light, 5 

Climbs to a soul for grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadow-s green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 10 

And there's never a leaf -or a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 15 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wdngs, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature w^hich song is the best ? 20 

Now is the high-tide of the year. 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 25 
We are happy now because God so wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now^ that the leaves are green ; 
"We sit in the warm shade and feel right w^ell ; 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms sw^ell ; 30 
We may shut our eyes, but w^e cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
Th[it dandelions are blossoming near, 



12 THE VISION OF SIB LAUNPaLc 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 5 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,— 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 10 

Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upw^ard striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural w^ay of living : 15 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 20 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth. 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Kemembered the keeping of his vow ? 35 

Part First. 
I. 

' ' My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail, 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, 30 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 13 

Nor shall a pillow ])e under my head, 

Till I begin my vow to keep ; 

Here on the rushes will I sleep, 

And perchance there may come a vision true 

Ere day create the world anew," 5 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 
And into his soul the vision flew. 



II. 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 10 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year. 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray ; 15 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be. 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 
But the churlish tone her assaults defied ; 20 

She could not scale the chilly w'all, 
Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right. 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 25 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at'night. 



3. rushes. The floors of an ancient feudal castle were 
strewn with rushes. 

16. North Countree. Northern Enprland. 

25. tent. By pavilions above and teiits here trees are of 
ccurse meant. 



14 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

III. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 

And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 

Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 

It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 5 

Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long. 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 

Had cast them forth ; so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust leaf, , 10 

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail. 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It w^as morning on hill and stream and tree, 
And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 15 

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher- plant's cup. 19 



As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same. 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came. 
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 24 

The flesh 'neath his armor did shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 



I 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 15 

For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 5 

' ' Better to me the poor man's crust. 

Better the blessing of the poor. 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 

He gives nothing but worthless gold 10 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
But he who gives a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight. 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
AVhich runs through all and doth all unite, — 15 

The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To tlie soul that was starving in darkness before." 



Prelude to Part Second. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak. 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 21 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 25 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare ; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 



16 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 5 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 10 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 15 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and 

here 
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
And hung them thickly with diamond drops, 
Which crystaled the beams of moon and sun, 
And made a star of every one : 20 

No mortal builder's most rare device 
Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 
In his depths serene through the summer day, 
Each flitting shadow of earth and sky, 25 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, 30 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With the lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFaL. 17 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 5 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

ITow pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 

But the wind without was eager and sharp, 10 

Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 

And rattles and wrings 

The icy string.s, 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own, 15 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 

As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 

1. Yule-log. A great log of wood, sometimes the root of a 
tree, brought into the h<Hise with great ceremony on Chiistmas 
eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last 
year's log. While it lasted there was great drinking, singing, 
and telling of tales. Sometimes it was accompanied by Clirist- 
mas candles; but in the cottages tlie only light was from the 
ruddy blaze of the gr-^at wood fire. The Yule-log was to burn 
all night ; if it went out ir was consiilered a sign of ill-luck. 
Herrick mentions it in one of his songs : 

" Come. bi-ing with a noise. 
My merrie, merrie boys. 

The Christmas log to the firing; 
While my good dame, she 
Bids ye all be free. 

And drink to your hearts' desiring." 
The Yule-log is still burned in many fai-mhouses and kitchens in 
England, particularly in the north, and there are several super- 
stitions connected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting 
person come to the house while it is bm-ning, or a person bare- 
footed, it is considered an ill omen. The brand remaininsr from 
the Yule-log is carefully put away to light the next year's Christ- 
mas fire. See Irving's Sketch Book. 



18 THE VISION OF SlR LAUNFAL. 

And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 

Build out its piers of ruddy light 

Against the drift of the cold. 5 

Part Second. 
I. 
There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the frost's swift shuttles its shroud had spun ; 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 10 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 15 

II. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 

For another heir in his earldom sate ; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 20 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross. 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 25 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; 

21. cross. The Christian kiiig:hts, while on a sacred quest, 
wore a large red cross on the white tunic worn over their armor. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 19 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 5 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one. 

He can count the camels in the sun, 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 10 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ;" 

The happy camels may reacli the spring, 14 

But Sir Launfal sees naught have the grewsome thing, 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 

That cowered beside him, a thing as lone 

And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 

In the desolate horror of his disease. 

V. 

And Sir Launfal said,—" I behold in thee 20 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,— 

Thou also hast had the world's butfets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side ; 25 



21. tree. A word commonly used in mediaeval literature, 
meaning cross. Lowell was a iceen student of tlie early litera- 
ture of our language and delighted in obsolete forms. Seethe 
Sonnet, page 49. The word as used here gives the whole passage 
a quaint old-time flavor. 



20 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
Behold, through him, I give to thee ! " 

VL 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway be 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 5 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he caged his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail, 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 10 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink ; 
'T was a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 15 

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side. 

But stood before him glorified, 20 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 34 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. 
Which mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 



THE VISIOX OF SIR LAUNFAL. 21 

And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 

" Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 
In many climes, without avail. 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
Behold it is here, — this cup which thou 5 

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 
This crust is my body broken for thee. 
This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need, — 10 

Not that which we give, but what we share, — 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke, as from a s wound : — 15 

" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 

Hang my idle armor up on the wall. 

Let it be the spiders banquet-hall ; 

He must be fenced with stronger mail 

Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 20 



The castle-gate stands open now. 
And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 
No longer scowl the turrets tall. 

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 25 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door. 

She entered with him in disguise. 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 29 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round ; 



22 ALLEGRA. 

The meanest serf on Sir LaimfaFs land 

Has hall and bower at his command ; 

And there's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



ALLEGBA. 

I WOULD more natures were like thine, 5 

That never casts a glance before, — 

Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine 
So lavishly to all dost pour, 

That we who drink forget to pine. 
And can but dream of bliss in store. 10 

Thou canst not see a shade in life ; 

With sunward instinct thou dost rise, 
And, leaving clouds below at strife, 

Gazest undazzled at the skies, 
With all their blazing splendors rife, 15 

A songful lark with eagle's eyes. 

Thou wast some foundling whom the Hours 
Nursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth ; 

Some influence more gay than ours 
Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, 20 

As if t hy natal-stars were flowers 

That shook their seeds round thee on earth. 

7. Hebe. Hebe was the eup-bearer of the Greek g^ods. 

16. eagle's eyes. It is said tliat an eagle can gaze directly 
at the sun without being dazzled. 

17. Hours. The Gieek mythology accords a living personality 
to everything, even to trees and brooks. 

21. natal-stars. According to the science of astrology, an 
individual's character and fortunes are strougly influenced by 
the stars whicii happen to be in the ascendant at the time of his 
birth. 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 23 

And thou, to lull thine infant rest, 
Wast cradled like an Indian child ; 

All pleasant winds from south and west 
With lullabies thine ears beguiled, 

Eocking thee in thine oriole's nest, 5 

Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. 

Thine every fancj' seems to borrow 
A sunlight from thy childish years, 

Making a golden cloud of sorrow, 

A hope-lit rainbow out of tears, — 10 

Thy heart is certain of to-morrow, 
Though 'yond to-day it never peers. 

I would more natures were like thine, 

So jnnocently wild and free. 
Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine, 15 

Like sunny wavelets in the sea, 
Making us mindless of the brine 

In gazing on the brilliancy. 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 

There came a youth upon the earth. 

Some thousand years ago, 20 

Whose slender hands were nothing worth, 
Whether to plow, or reap, or sow. 

He made a lyre, and drew therefrom 
Music so strange and rich. 

King Admetus. Apollo, the Greek god of music, having 
ofifended Zeus, "ruler of gods and men," was deprived of all 
power-and dignity and sentenced to a temporary servitude in the 
house of Admetus. King of Thessaly. 

2S. lyre. Apollo's lyre was made of a tortoise-shell strung 
with seven strings. 



24 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 

That all men loved to hear, — and some 
Muttered of fagots for a witch. 

But King Admetus, one who had 

Pure taste by right divine, 
Decreed his singing not too bad 5 

To hear between the cups of wine : 

And so, well pleased with being soothed 

Into a sweet half -sleep, 
Three times his kingly beard he smoothed 
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. 10 

His words were simple words enough 

And yet he used them so. 
That what in other mouths were rough 
In his seemed musical and low. 

Men called him but a shiftless youth, 15 

In whom no good they saw ; 
And yet, unwittingly, in truth. 
They made his careless words their law. 

They knew not how he learned at all, 

For, long hour after hour, 20 

He sat and watched the dead leaves fall. 
Or mused upon a common flower. 

It seemed the loveliness of things 

Did teach him all their use. 
For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, 25 
He found a healing power profuse. 

Men granted that his speech was wise, 

But, when a glance they caught 
Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 29 

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught* 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 25 

Yet after he was dead and gone, 

And e'en his memory dim, 
Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 
More full of love, because of him. 

And day by day more holy grew 5 

Each spot where he had trod, 
Till after-poets only knew 
Their first-born brother as a god. 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 

He spoke of Burns : men rude and rough 

Pressed round to hear the praise of one 10 

Whose breast was made of manly, simple stuff, 
As homespun as their own. 

And, when he read, they forward leaned 
And heard, with eager hearts and ears. 

His birdlike songs whom glory never weaned 15 
From humble smiles and tears. 

Slowly there grew a tender awe, 

Sunlike o'er faces brown and hard. 
As if in him who read they felt and saw 

Some presence of the bard. 20 



9. Robert Burns (1759-1796). The national poet of Scotland 
and the author of some of the most charming lyrics in the lan- 
guage. His hest-known works are the poems : " The Twa Dogs,"' 
'• Hallowe'en," " Tani o' Shanter," " Tlie Cotter's Saturday 
Night," " The Vision," and " The Jolly I^eggars." His brief life 
of thirty-seven years was one continued struggle with poverty. 



26 AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 

It was a sight for sin and wrong 

And slavish tj'ranny to see, 
A sight to make our faith more pure and strong 

In high Humanity. 

I thought, these men will carry hence 5 

Promptings their former life above, 
And something of a finer reverence 

For beauty, truth, and love. 

God scatters love on every side, 

Freely among his children all, 10 

And always hearts are lying open wide 

Wherein some grains may fall. 

There is no wind but sows some seeds 

Of a more true and open life, 
Which burst unlocked for into high-souled deeds 15 

With wayside beauty rife. 

We find within these souls of ours 

Some wild germs of a higher birth. 
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers 

Whose fragrance fills the earth. 20 

Within the hearts of all men lie 

These promises of wider bliss. 
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, 

In sunny hours like this. 

All that hath been majestical 25 

In life or death since time began, 
Is native in the simple heart of all, 

The angel heart of man. 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 27 

And thus among the untaught poor 
Great deeds and feelings find a home 

Which casts in shadow all the golden lore 
Of classic Greece or Kome. 

Oh ! mighty brother-soul of man, 5 

Where'er thou art, in low or high, 
Thy skyey arches with exulting span 

O'er-roof infinity. 

All thoughts that mold the age begin 

Deep down within the primitive soul, 10 

And, from the many, slowly upward wing 

To One who grasps the whole. 

In his broad breast, the feeling deep 
Which struggled on the many's tongue, 

Swells to a tide of Thought whose surges leap 15 
O'er the weak throne of wrong. 

Never did poesy appear 

So full of Heav'n to me as when 
I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear, 

To lives of coarsest men. 20 

It may be glorious to write 

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 
High souls like those far stars that come in sight 

Once in a century. 

But better far it is to speak 25 

One simple word which now and then 

Shall waken their free nature in the weak 
And friendless sons of men ; 



28 RHCECUS. 

To write some earnest verse or line 
Which, seeking not the praise of Art, 

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the unlearned heart. 

Boston, April, 1843. 



EHCECUS. 



God sends his teachers unto every age, 5 

To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 
Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed 10 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
The master-key of knowledge, reverence, 
Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right ; 
Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 
The slothful down of pampered ignorance, 15 

Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. 

There is an instinct in the human heart 
AVhich makes that all the fables it hath coined. 
To justify the reign of its belief 
And strengthen it by beauty's right divine, 20 

Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift. 
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands. 
Points surely to the hidden springs of truth. 
For, as in I^Tature naught is made in vain, 

1. earnest verse or line. Read, in tlie ciitical opinions, 
H. D. Traill's estimate of the popular element in Lowell's own 
work. 

22. hazel twig. The divining-rod used by superstitious 
people in looking for buried treasure, is made of a hazel twig, 
which is supposed to deflect from its horizontal position wlien 
carried over the hidden gold. 



RHCECUS. 29 

But all things have within their hull of use 

A wisdom and a meaning which may speak 

Of spiritual secrets to the ear 

Of spirit ; so, in whatsoe'er'the heart 

Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, 5 

To make its inspirations suit its creed, 

And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring 

Its needful food of truth, there ever is 

A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, 

Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 10 

And earnest parables of inward lore. 

Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, 

As full of freedom, youth, a:id beauty still 

As the immortal freshness of that grace 

Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. 15 

A youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood, 
Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall. 
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree. 
He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, 
And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 20 

But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind 
That murmured " Rhoecus ! " 'T was as if the leaves, 
Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it, 
And, while he paused bewildered, yet again 
It murmured " Rhoecus ! " softer than a breeze. 25 
He started and beheld with dizzy eyes 
What seemed the substance of a happy dream 
Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow 
Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak. 
It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair 30 

To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 
-For any that were wont to mate with gods. 

15. Attic frieze. Attic because Athens iu Attica was the 
home o€ Greek art. 



30 RHCECUS. 

All naked like a goddess stood she there, 

And like a goddess all too beautiful 

To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame. 

"Khcecus, I am the Dryad of this tree," 

Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words 5 

Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, 

" And with it I am doomed to live and die ; 

The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 

Nor have I other bliss than simple life ; 

Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give, 10 

And with a thankful joy it shall be thine." 

Then Ehoecus, with a flutter at the heart. 
Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold, 
Answered : " What is there that can satisfy 
The endless craving of the soul but love ? 15 

Give me thy love, or but the hope of that 
Which must be evermore my spirit's goal." 
After a little pause she said again, 
But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 
" I give it, Khoecus, though a perilous gift ; 20 

An hour before the sunset meet me here. " 
And straightway there was nothing he could see 
But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak, 
And not a sound came to his straining ears 
But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, 25 

And far away upon an emerald slope 
The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. 

Now, in those days of simpleness and faith. 
Men did not think that happy things were dreams 
Because they overstepped the narrow bourn 30 



4. Dryad. Greek nijnhology ascribed to the tree-nymphs or 
dryads tlie distinguishing characteristics of the particular tree 
to wliose life they were wedded. 



RHCECUS. 31 

Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 

Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 

To be the guerdon of a daring heart. 

So Khoecus made no doubt that he was blest, 

And all along unto the city's gate 5 

Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked, 

The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont, 

And he could scarce belicYe he had not wings, 

Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins 

Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange. 10 

Young Rhoecus had a faithful heart enough, 
But one that in the present dwelt too much, 
And taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er 
Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that, 
Like the contented peasant of a vale, 15 

Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. 
So, haply meeting in the afternoon 
Some comrades who were playing at the dice, 
He joined them and forgot all else beside. 

The dice were rattling at the merriest, 20 

And Rhoecus, who had met but sorry luck, 
Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw, 
When through the room there hummed a yellow bee 
That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs 
As if too light. And Rhoecus laughed and said, 25 
Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss, 
" By Venus ! does he take me for a rose ? " 
And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand. 
But still the bee came back, and thrice again 
Rhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath. 30 
Then through the window flew the wounded bee. 
And Rhoecus, tracking him with angry eyes, 
Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly 



32 RHGECUS. 

Against the red disk of the setting sun, — 

And instantly the blood sank from his heart, 

As if its very walls had caved away. 

Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth, 

Kan madly through the city and the gate, 5 

And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade. 

By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim, 

Darkened well-nigh unto the city's wall. 

Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, 
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more 10 

The low voice murmur " Rhoecus ! " close at hand : 
Whereat he looked around him, but could see 
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. 
Then sighed the voice, "O Rhoecus ! nevermore 
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 15 

Me, who would fain have blest thee with a love 
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart : 
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger, 
And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings. 20 
We spirits only show to gentle eyes, 
We ever ask an undivided love, 
And he who scorns the least of Nature's works 
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. 
Farewell ! for thou canst never see me more." 25 

Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, 
And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet 
This once, and I shall never need it more ! " 
" Alas ! " the voice returned, " 't is thou art blind, 
Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive, 30 

But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes ; 
Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 
With that again there murmured " Nevermore ! " 



TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS. 33 

And Rhoeciis after heard no other sound, 

Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 

Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 

Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. 

The night had gathered round him : o'er the plain 5 

The city sparkled with its thousand lights. 

And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 

Harshly and like a curse ; above, the sky, 

With all its bright sublimity of stars, 

Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze : 10 

Beauty was all around him and delight. 

But from that eve he was alone on earth. 



TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS. 

Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, 
Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, 15 

On wiiose full orbs, w'ith kindly luster, lies 

12. "A still better piece of art woik is Rhoecus. that Greek 
legeud of the wood-nymph and the bee. The poet by chance 
suijjected himself, and not discreditabl}-, to the test of a compa- 
ison with the most bewitching of Landor's Hellenics, The Hama- 
dryad. Much might be said, in view of these two idyls, upon the 
antique and modern handlings of a theme. Landor worked as a 
Grecian might, giving the tale in chiseled verse, with no curious 
regard for its teachings. Its beauty is enough for him, and there 
it stands — a Periclean vase. His instinct became a conscious 
method. In a letter to Forster he begs him to amend the poem 
by striking out a bit of ' reflection ' which a true hamadryad 
should cut " across.' Mr. Lowell's Rhoecus is an example of the 
modern feeling. Passages such as that beginning, ' A youth 
named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood,' are simple and lovely ; 
the scene where Rhoecus, playing dice, rudely treats the winged 
messenger, is a picture equahng the best of Landor's. But the 
story itself is preceded by a moralizing commentary, and other 
glosses of the same kind are here and there. The whole is 
treated as an allegory conveying a lesson. This method confuses 
the beauty of the poem, though distinct enough in its purpose." 
—E. C. Stedmnn. 

13. John Keats (1795-1821). One of the most truly inspired 
of England's great poets. He died at the early age of twenty- 
six, after 

" WrestHng with the young poefs agomes, • 
Neglect and scorn," 



34 AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 

The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom : 

Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom 

Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, 

AVrestling with the young poet's agonies, 

Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom : 5 

Yes ! the few words which, like great thunder-drops, 

Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully, 

Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, 

Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light. 

Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, 10 

After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. 

1841. 



AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 

The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to 

the skies. 
Like some huge piece of Nature's make, the growth 

of centuries ; 
You could not deem its crowding spires a work of 

human art. 
They seemed to struggle lightward so from a sturdy 

living heart. 15 

Not Nature's self more freely speaks in crystal or in 

oak 
Than, through the pious builder's hand, in that gray 

pile she spoke ; 

11. moon-led pulse of ocean. The tides are caused by the 
undulating attractions of suu and moon. Compare Emerson's 

"As the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon." 

12. The fii*e at Hamburg. The great fire occurred in 1842- 
It lasted for three days and occasioued great loss of life and 
pioperty, one third of the whole city being destroyed. The 
church of St. Nicholas has since been restored and is now Ham- 
burg's chief pride. 



AN INCIDEXT TO THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 35 

And as from acorn springs the oak, so freely and 

alone, 
Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, sung in 

obedient stone. 

It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so. perfect, 

yet so rough, 
A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in granite 

tough ; 5 

The thick spires yearned toward the sky in quaint 

harmonious lines. 
And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove 

of blasted pines. 

Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim w^ith better 

right 
To all the adorning sympathies of shadow^ and of 

light ; 9 

And, in that forest petrified, as forester there dwells 
Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its 

bells. 

Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared onward, 
red as blood, 

Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddy- 
ing flood ; 

For miles away, the fiery spray poured down its 
deadly rain. 

And back and forth the billows drew, and paused, 
and broke again. 15 

From square to square, with tiger leaps, still on and 

on it came ; 
The air to leeward trembled with the pantings of the 

flame, 



36 AN INCIDENT TO THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 

And church and palace, which even now stood 

whelmed but to the knee, 
Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the 

rushing sea. 

Up in his tower old Herman sat and watched with 

•quiet look ; 
His soul had trusted God too long to be at last 

forsook : 
He could not fear, for surely God a pathway would 

unfold 5 

Through this red sea, for faithful hearts, as once he 

did of old. 

But scarcely can he cross himself, or on his good 
saints call. 

Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped the church- 
yard wall, 

And, ere a pater half was said, 'mid smoke and 
crackling glare. 

His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide 
despair. 10 

Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart stood up 

sublime ; 
His first thought was for God above, his next was 

for his chime ; 
"Sing now, and make your voices heard in hymns 

of praise," cried he, 
"As did the Israelites of old, safe-walking through 

the sea ! " 

" Through this red sea our God hath made our path- 
way safe to shore ; 15 

Our promised land stands full in sight ; shout now 
as ne'er before. " 



HEBE. 37 

And, as the tower came crashing down, the bells, in 

clear accord. 
Pealed forth the grand old German hymn — "All 

good souls praise the Lord ! " 



HEBE. 



I SAW the twinkle of white feet, 
I saw the flash of robes descending ; 

Before her ran an influence fleet, 5 

That bowed my heart like barley bending. 

As, in bare fields, the searching bees 
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, 

It led me on, by sweet degrees 
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. 10 

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates ; 
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me ; 

The long-sought Secret's golden gates 
On musical hinges swung before me. 

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp 15 

Thrilling with godhood ; like a lover 

I sprang the proffered life to clasp ; — 
The beaker fell ; the luck was over. 

The Earth has drunk the vintage up ; 
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters ? 20 

Can Summer fill the icy cup. 
Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's ? 

3. Hebe. Tlie Greek goddess Hebe was the personification 
of vouth. bhe was the cup-bearer of ihe t^ods, and presented to 
them the vouth-renewing nectar and ambrosia. In this poem of 
course the immortal food typifies the poetic inspiration. 



38 TO THE DANDELION^. 

O spendthrift Haste ! await the gods, 
Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience ; 

Haste scatters on unthankful sods 
The immortal gift in vain libations. 

Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, 
And shuns the hands would seize upon her ; 

Follow thy life, and she will sue 
To pour for thee the cup of honor. 



TO THE DANDELION. 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 10 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
"Which children pluck, and, full of pride, upliold. 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 15 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth — thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder Summer-blooms may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 20 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 
'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 

Though most hearts never understand 25 



15. Eldorado. The land of gold which tlie adventurous 
mariners of the sixteenth century were eonstantlj' seeking:. It 
was supposed to exist soniewliere in central South America. 
The word is derived Irom the Spanish el = the, and dorado = 
gilt. 



TO THE DANDELION. 39 

To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 5 

Are in the heart and heed not space or time : 
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more Summer-like, warm ravishment 

In the white lily's breezy tent, 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 10 

From the dark green tliy yellow circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows in the grass, — 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, — 15 

Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass. 
Or whiten in the wind, — of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap, — and of a sky above 19 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song. 

Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long. 
And I, secure in childish piety, 25 

Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from Heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 



10. Sybavis. A Greek colony in Magna Grsecia, notorious for 
the excessive and enervated luxury of tlie lives of its inhabitants. 



40 TO THE DAXDELION. 

Thou art the type of those meek charities 
Which make up half the nobleness of life, 

Those cheap delights the wise 
Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife ; 
Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, 5 

Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give 

The morsel that may keep alive 
A starving heart, and teach it to behold 
Some glimpse of God where all before w^as cold. 

Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, 10 
Are like the words of poet and of sage 

Which through the free heaven fare. 
And, now unheeded, in another age 
Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 
That witness which the present would not heed, 15 

Bringing forth many a thought and deed. 
And, planted safely in the eternal sky. 
Bloom into stars w-hich earth is guided by. 

Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full 

Than all thy common brethren of the ground, 20 

Wherein, were we not dull, 
Some words of highest wisdom might be found ; 
Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull 
Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make 

A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, 25 

And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still, 
Yea, nearer ever than the gates of 111. 

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem. 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to deem 30 

More sacredly of every human heart. 
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 



LIXES SUGGESTED BY GRAVES AT CONCORD. 41 

Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubtiiig wisdom look 
Oil all these living pages of God's book. 

But let me read thy lesson right or no, 

Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure ; 5 

Old I shall never grow 
While thou each year dost come to keep me pure 
With legends of my childhood ; ah, we owe 
Well more than half life's holiness to these 

Nature's first lowly influences, 10 

At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope. 
In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. 



LINES 



Suggested by the Graves of two English Soldiers 
ON Concord Battle-ground. 

The same good blood that now refills 

The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, 15 

The same whose vigor westward thrills, 

Bursting Nevada's silver chains. 
Poured here upon the April grass. 

Freckled with red the herbage new ; 
On reeled the battle's trampling mass, 20 

Back to the ash the bluebird flew. 



12. "The opening phrase ranks with the selectest of Woids- 
worth and Keats, to whom iinagrinative diction came intuitively. 
This poem contains many of its author's peculiar beauties and 
none of his faults; it was the outcome of the mood that can 
summon a rare spirit of art to express the grladdest thought and 
most elusive feeling:." — E. C. Sted)n<tn, in Century Magazine. 

15. dotard Orient's shrunken veins. A reference to Eng- 
land's investment of India. 



42 LINES SUGGESTED BY GRAVES AT CONCORD. 

Poured here in vain ; — that sturdy blood 

AVas meant to make the earth more green, 
Bnt in a higher, gentler mood 

Than broke this April noon serene ; 
Two graves are here ; to mark the place, 5 

At head and foot, an unhewn stone, 

O'er which the herald lichens trace 

The blazon of oblivion. 

These men were brave enough, and true 

To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed ; 10 

What brought them here they never knew. 

They fought as suits the English breed ; 
They came three tliousand miles, and died, 

To keep the Past upon its throne ; 
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, 15 

Their English mother made her moan. 

The turf that covers them no thrill 

Sends up to fire the heart and brain ; 
No stronger purpose nerves the will. 

No hope renews its youth again : 20 

From farm to farm the Concord glides, 

And trails my fancy with its flow ; 
O'erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides. 

Twinned in the river's heaven below. 

But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, 25 

Proud of thy birth and neighbor's right, 
Where sleep the heroic villagers 

Borne red and stiff from Concord fight ; 
Thought Keuben, snatching down his gun. 

Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, 30 

What earthquake rifts would shoot and run 

World-wide from that short April-fray ? 



THE BOBOLIXK. 43 

What then ? With heart and hand they wrought, 

According to their village light ; 
T was for the Future that they fought 

Their rustic faith in what w^as right. 
Upon earth's tragic stage they burst 5 

Unsummoned, in the humble sock ; 
Theirs the fifth act ; the curtain first 

Rose long ago on Charles's block. 

Their graves have voices ; if they threw 

Dice charged with fates beyond their ken, 10 

Yet to their instincts they w^re true, 

And had the genius to be men. 
Fine privilege of Freedom's host, 
. Of even foot-soldiers for the Right I — 
For centuries dead, ye are not lost, 15 

Your graves send courage forth, and might. 



THE BOBOLINK. 

Anacreon of the meadow, 

Drunk with the joy of spring ! 

Beneath the tall pine's voiceful shadow 20 

6. humble sock. The Greek and Roman actors in comedy 
wore the sock as a distinctive mark of their profession. The 
tragic actors wore the cothurnus, or buskin, on the stage. 

7. fifth act. The tragedy consists of five acts, convention- 
ally. 

8. Charles's block. Charles I. was executed January 30, 
1649, in front of the palace at Whitehall. This was the fir.st Eng- 
lish revolution. 

18. Anacreon. One of the most esteemed lyric poets of 
Greece. His poems were composed in honor of wine and beauty. 
The few that are now in existence are marked by great simpli- 
city and delicacy of expression, fertility of invention, and variety 
of "illustration. According to tradition, Anacreon died, very 
appropriately, by being choked to death by a grape. He was 
immortalized by a statue on the Acropolis of Athens, which 
represented him in a state of vinous hilarity. 



44 THE BOBOLINK. 

I lie and drink thy jargoning ; 

My soul is full with melodies, 

One drop would overflow it, 

And send the tears into mine eyes— 

But what carest thou to know it ? 5 

Thy heart is free as mountain air. 

And of thy lays thou hast no care, 

Scattering them gayly everywhere, 

Happy, unconscious poet ! 

Upon a tuft of meadow grass, 10 

While thy loved-one tends the nest, 
Thou sway est as the breezes pass, 
Unburdening thine o'erfull breast 
Of the crowded songs that fill it, 
Just as joy may choose to will it. 15 

Lord of thy love and liberty, 
The blithest bird of merry May, 
Thou turnest thy bright eyes on me. 
That say as plain as eye can say— 
" Here sit w^e, here in the summer weather, 20 

I and my modest mate together ; 
Whatever your wise thoughts may be, 
Under that gloomy old pine-tree, 
We do not value them a feather." 

Now, leaving earth and me behind, 25 

Thou beatest up against the wind, 
Or, floating slowly down before it, 
Above thy grass-hid nest thou flutterest 
And thy bridal love-song utterest, 
Raining showers of music o'er it, 30 

Weary never, still thou trillest. 
Spring-gladsome lays. 
As of moss-rimmed water-brooks 
Murmuring through pebbly nooks 



THE BOBOLINK. 45 

111 quiet summer days. 

My heart with happiness thou fillest, 

I seem again to be a boy 

Watching thee, gay, blithesome lover, 

O'er the bending grass-tops hover, 5 

Quivering thy wings for joy. 

There's something in the apple-blossom, 

The greening grass and bobolink's song, 

That wakes again within my bosom 

Feelings which have slumbered long. 10 

As long, long years ago I wandered, 

I seem to wander even yet. 

The hours the idle schoolboy squandered. 

The man would die ere he'd forget. 

hours that frosty eld deemed wasted, 15 
Nodding his gray head toward my books, 

1 dearer prize the lore I tasted 

With you, among the trees and brooks. 

Than all that I have gained since then 

From learned books or study-withered men. 20 

Nature, thy soul was one with mine. 

And, as a sister by a younger brother 

Is loved, each flowing to the other, 

Such love for me was thine. 

Or wert thou not more like a loving mother 25 

With sympathy and loving power to heal, 

Against whose heart my throbbing head I'd lay 

And moan my childish sorrows all away. 

Till calm and holiness would o'er me steal ? 

Was not the golden sunset a dear friend ? ' 

Found I no kindness in the silent moon. 

And the green trees, whose tops did sway and bend, 

Low singing evermore their pleasant tune ? 

Felt I no heart in dim and solemn woods — 

No loved one's voice in lonely solitudes ? 35 



46 THE BOBOLINK* 

Yes, yes ! unhoodwinked then my spirit^s eyes, 
Blind leaders had not taught me to be wise. 

Dear hours ! which now again I overlive, 
Hearing and seeing with the ears and eyes 
Of childhood, ye were bees, that to the hive 5 

Of my young heart came laden with rich prize. 
Gathered in fields and woods and sunny dells, to be 
My spirit's food in days more wintery. 
Yea, yet again ye come ! ye come ! 
And, like a child once more at home 10 

After long sojourning in alien climes, 
I lie upon my mother's breast, 
Feeling the blessedness of rest. 
And dwelling in the light of other times. 

O ye whose living is not Life, 15 

"Whose dying is but death. 
Song, empty toil and petty strife, 
Bounded with loss of breath ! 
Go, look on Nature's countenance, 
Drink in the blessing of her glance ; 20 

Look on the sunset, hear the wind, 
The cataract, the awful thunder ; 
Go, worship by the sea ; 
Then, and then only, shall ye find. 
With ever-growing wonder, 25 

Man is not all in all to ye ; 
Go with a meek and humble soul. 
Then shall the scales of self unroll 
From off your eyes — the weary packs 
Drop from your heavy-laden backs ; 30 

And ye shall see. 
With reverent and hopeful eyes, 
Glowing with new-born energies, 
How great a thing it is to be ! 



APPLEDORE, 47 



APPLEDORE. 

How looks Appledore in a storm ? 

I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic, 

Butting against the maddened Atlantic, 
When surge after surge would heap enorme. 

Cliffs of Emerald topped with snow, 5 

That lifted and lifted and then let go 
A great white avalanche of thunder, 

A grinding, blinding, deafening ire 
Monadnock might have trembled under ; 

And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below 10 

To where they are warmed with the central fire, 
You could feel its granite fibers racked. 

As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill 

Right at the breast of the swooping hill, 
And to rise again, snorting a cataract 15 

Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge. 

While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep. 
And the next vast breaker curled its edge, 

Gathering itself for a mighty leap. 
North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers. 

You would never dream of in smooth weather, 21 
That toss and gore the sea for acres, 

Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together ; 
Look northward, where Duck Island lies. 
And over its crown you will see arise, 25 

Against a background of slaty skies, 

A row of pillars still and white 

That glimmer and then are out of sight, 

1. Appledore, One of the group of eight islands, the Isles 
of Shoals, which lie about ten miles southeast of Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire. There is a large summer hotel on Appledore 
Island. 



48 APPLEDORE. 

As if the moon should suddenly kiss, 

While you crossed the gusty desert by night, 
The long colonnades of Persepolis, 
And then as sudden a darkness would follow 
To gulp the whole scene at a single swallow, 5 

The city's ghost, the drear, brown waste. 
And the string of camels, clumsy-paced : — 
Look southward for White Island light, 
• The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide ; 
There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, 10 

Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, 

And surging bewilderment wild and wide. 
Where the breakers struggle left and right, 

Then a mile or more of rushing sea. 
And then the light-house slim and lone ; 15 

And w^henever the whole weight of ocean is thrown 
Full and fair on White Island head, 

A great mist-jotun you will see 

Lifting himself up silently 
High and huge o'er the lighthouse top, 20 

With hands of wavering spray outspread, 

Groping after the little tower, 

That seems to shrink, and shorten and cower, 
Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, 

And silently and fruitlessly 25 

He sinks again into the sea. 

You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand, 
Awaken once more to the rush and roar 

3. Persepolis. The Greek trauslation of the lost name of 
the capital of ancient Persia. Some remarkable ruins are now 
the only remains of that cit)% which was generally desigrnated by 
the ancient writers '" the Glory of the East." The architecture 
of Persepolis, as now suggested by the ruins, made a great use of 
columns, and these may be observed from a great distance on 
the plain below the terraces on which the city was built. 

18. mist-jotun. In Scandinavian mythology, Jotunheim is 
the home of the frost giants or '" jotuns." 



SONXET. 



49 



And on the rock-point tighten your hand, 
As you turn and see a valley deep, 

That was not there a moment before, 
Suck rattling down between you and a heap 

Of toppling billow, whose instant fall 5 

Must sink the whole island once for all— 
Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas 

Feeling their way to you more and more ; 
If they once should clutch you high as the knees 
They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, 10 
Beyond all reach of hope or help ;— 

And such in a storm is Appledore. 



SONNET. 

If some small savor creep into my rhyme 

Of the old poets, if some words I use, 15 

Neglected long, which have the lusty thews 

Of "that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time, 

Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime 

Have given our tongue its starry eminence,— 

It is not pride, God knows, but reverence _ 20 

Which hath grown in me since my childhood's prime ; 

Wherein I feel that my poor lyre is strung 

With soul-strings like to theirs, and that I have 

No right to muse their holy graves among. 

If I can be a custom-fettered slave, 25 

And, in mine own true spirit, am not brave 

To speak what rusheth upward to my tongue. 



15 old poets. Lowell was passionately fond of the old Eng- 
lish Doets especially Spenser, and frequently he succeeds admi- 
rably^n imka^ting then?. This' taste, however, led h.m sometimes 
into grave errors in the use of words. 



50 hakon's lay. 



HAKON'S LAY. 



Then Thorstein looked at Hakon, where he sate, 

Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, 

And said : " O Skald, sing now an olden song, 

Such as our fathers heard who led great lives ; 

And, as the bravest on a shield is borne 5 

Along the waving host that shouts him king, 

So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas ! " 

Then the old man arose, white-haired he stood. 

White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar 

From their still region of perpetual snow, 10 

Over the little smokes and stirs of men : 

His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years. 

As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine. 

But something triumphed in his brow and eye, 

Which whoso saw it, could not see and crouch : 15 

Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused. 

Brooding his aeried thoughts ; then, as an eagle 

Circles smooth-winged above the wind- vexed woods, 

So wheeled his soul into the air of song 

High o'er the stormy hall ; and thus he sang : 20 

"The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out 

Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as 

light ; 
And, from a quiver full of such as these, 
The wary bowman, matched against his peers. 
Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. 25 



1. Thorstein. Leif and Thorstein were the sons of Eric the 
Red, a famous Viking hero who liad discovered Greenland. 

3. Skald. The Vikings held the skalds, or poets, in great 
esteem. They enlivened the long winter evenings by reciting or 
singing songs in honor of different heroes. 



51 



Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate ? 

What archer of his arrows is so choice, 

Or hits the white so surely ? They are men, 

The chosen of her quiver ; nor for her 

Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick 5 

At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked : 

Such answer household ends ; but she will have 

Souls straight and clear, of toughest fiber, sound 

Down to the heart of heart ; from these she strips 

All needless stuff, all sapwood, hardens them, 10 

From circumstance untoward feathers plucks 

Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with iron will : 

The hour that passes is her quiver-boy ; 

When she draws bow, 't is not across the wind, 14 

Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings, 

For sun and wind have plighted faith to her : 

Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold, 

In the butt's heart her trembling messenger ! 

" The song is old and simple that I sing : 

Good were the days of yore, when men were tried 20 

By ring of shields, as now by ring of gold ; 

But, while the gods are left, and hearts of men 

And the free ocean, still the days are good ; 

Through the broad Earth roams Opportunity 

And knocks at every door of hut or hall, 25 

Until she finds the brave soul that she wants." 

He ceased, and instantly the frothy tide 

Of interrupted wassail roared along ; 

But Leif, the son of Eric, sate apart 

Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, 30 

Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen ; 

But then with that resolve his heart was bent. 

Which, like a humming shaft, through many a strife 



52 THE BIRCH-TREE. 

Of day and night across the iinventured seas, 
Shot the brave prow to cut on Vinland sands 
The first rune in the Saga of the West. 



THE BIRCH-TREE. 

Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine, 5 
Among thy leaves that palpitate for ever ; 

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned. 
The soul once of some tremulous inland river, 

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah ! dumb, dumb for 
ever ! 

While all the forest, witched with slumberous sun- 
shine, 10 
Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence. 
Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended, — 
I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands, 
And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung 
silence. 15 



2. Vinland. It is claimed that the Vinland discovered by 
Leif, the son of Eric, was really America, and the theory has 
found very wide acceptance. 

3. rune. The letters of the Norse alphabet were called 
runes, 

3. Saga. The long: recitals of the deeds of heroes chanted by 
the scalds. It is from the Sa^as wl)ich are still in existence tliat 
we derive our knowledg^e of Scandinavian history and mythol- 
ogy. 

7. Ovid (43 B.C.— 18 A. D.). One of the most popular of Roman 
poets. The reference is here to one of his Metamorphoses, a 
series of poems describing the transformations of nymphs and 
youths as a punishment or to protect them. There are three 
cases where nymphs are changed to trees. Daphne, being pur- 
sued by Apollo, who wishes to embrace her. is changed into a 
laurel. The mourning sisters of Phaeton, wlio strove to drive 
the chariot of Apollo, are changed into poplars; and Dryope, who 
incautiously plucked a branch of the lotos-tree for her infant 
son, is herself changed into a lotos. 



THE BIRCH-TREE. 53 

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet, 
Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, 
Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow 
Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet, 
Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some 
startled Dryad. 5 

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers ; 
Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping ; 
Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience, 
And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping 
Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keep- 
ing. 10 

Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, 
So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences ; 
Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaf- 
lets 
Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses. 
And Nature gives me all her summer confidences. 15 

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble. 

Thou sympathizest still ; wild and unquiet, 

I fling me down ; thy ripple, like a river, 

Flows valleyward, where calmness is, and by it 

My heart is floated dovm into the land of quiet. 20 



RUSKIN'S WORKS 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 

THE AUTHORIZED (BRANTWOOD) EDITION 

With special introduction to each volume of prose works by 

Prof. Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard College. 

jyi R. GEORGE ALLEN begs to announce that Ruskin's Works will 

hereafter be published in America by Messrs. CHARLES E. 

MERRILL & CO. CMaynard, Merrill, «Sc Co. successors), of New York, 

who will issue the only authorized editions. London, Atigu'^t, 1890 

We have the pleasure of announcing that the Brantwood Edition of 
Ruskin's Works, in 21 volumes, is now ready. This is the only edition 
published in this country with Mr. Ruskin's consent and from the sale of 
which he derives a profit. The illustrations have been prepared under the 
author's personal supervision, and the type, paper, and style of binding are 
in accordance with his suggestions. Eacli volume of the prose tmrks con- 
tains a special introduction by Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard 
College, Mr. Ruskin's most intimate friend and most acute and sympathetic 
critic. The two volumes of poetry written between the ages of seven and 
twenty-six, with an appendix of later poems, are edited with notes biograph- 
ical and critical by Mr. Ruskin's secretary, William G. Collingwood, M.A. 
The chronological arrangement of the poems— the author's age at the time 
of writing being printed at the top of each page— illustrates in a most inter- 
esting manner the development of the author's mind and style. The un- 
illustrated volumes will be sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of $1-50 each 
for the edition in cloth and $-2.75 Tor the edition in har-calf binding, and 
the illustrated volumes for $2.75 each in cloth and $4.00 in half calf. The 
two volumes of poems have been copyrighted in this country under the new 
law. 

The attention of the public is called to the fact that, by virtue of this 
copyright, we shall hereafter be the only publishers in this country able to 
supply Ruskin's works complete, in a uniform style of binding. All English 
editions of Ruskiu now in print are kept in stock or will be imported at 
short notice. 

The New York Evening Post says :— Its authenticity is vouched for by 
the introductions furnished by Prof, C. E. Norton. 

The Literary World, Boston says -.—The Brantwood edition is printed 
from English plates and bound in olive-green cloth, the volumes measuring 
five inches by seven and one-half. The type is of good size, the paper 
opaque. In simple elegance this new edition deserves, indeed, to be ''ap- 
proved by him," and, with the aid of Professor Norton's introductions, it will 
undoubtedly commend itself to the taste, as well as to the conscience, of 
American disciples of the great art-critic who has taught our generation so 
sound a gospel. 

The Critic says :— It is a long-delayed but highly appreciated compliment 
to America that Mr. Ruskin has at length permitted his innumerable admir- 
ers here to follow his thought in an " authorized " edition of works long since 
classic and perennially fresh. It seemed as if Westminster Abbey were 
about to close over a great heart without this graceful act of recognition, if 
not of reparation, and as if American eyes were always to gaze on Ruskin's 
enchanted gardens through casual glimpses and crevices of the wall. At 
length, however, Mr. Ruskin has consented to be " Americanized "—to the 
extent, at least, of having a business representative in the United States; 
and the result is a series of volumes faultless in type, delightful in manu- 
facture, and as unpretentious in externals as those Arabian houses which, 
without, present simply surfaces of plain wall, but within are all dazzling 
with play of flower and fountain. Each light, manageable volume is clad, 
like Robin Hood, in a robe of dark green : within all is white, clean, pure, 
beautifully distinct and clear— a gem and a charm of print and leaf. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent by mail on receipt of price. 

Maynard, Meerill & Co., New York 



AText-Book on English Literature, 

With copious extracts from the leading authors, English and Ameri 
can. With full Instructions as to the Method in which these an 
to he studied. Adapted for use in Colleges, High Schools. 
Academies, etc. By Brainerd Kellogg, A.M., Professor oi 
the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiatt 
and Polytechnic Institute, Author of a *' Text-Book on Rhet- 
oric," and one of the Authors of Reed & Kellogg's "Graded 
Lessons in English,'* and "Higher Lessons in English.* 
Handsomely printed. 12mo, 478 pp. 

The Book is divided into the following Periods : 

Period I.— Before the Norman Conquest, 670-1066. Period II.— 
From the Conquest to Chaucer's death, 1066-1400. Period III.— 
From Chaucer's death to Elizabeth, 1400-1558. Period IV.— Eliza- 
beth's reign, 1558-1603. Period V. — From Elizabeth's death to the 
Restoration, 1 603-] 660. Period VI. —From the Restoration to Swift's 
death, 1660-1745. Period VII.— From Swift's death to the French 
Revolution, 1745-1789. Period VIII.— Froi the French Revolution, 
1789, onwards. 

Each Period is preceded by a Lesson containing a brief resum^ of the 
great historical events that have had somewhat to do in shaping or in color- 
ing- the literature of that period. 

The author aims in this book to furnish the pupil that which he cannot 
help himself to. It groups the authors so that their places in the line and 
tbr'ir relations to each other can be seen by the pupil; it throws light upon 
tae authors' times and surroundings, and notes the great influences at work, 
helping to make their writings what they are; it points out such of these 
as should be studied. 

Extracts, as many and as ample as the limits of a text-book would 
allow, have been made from the principal writei's of each Period. Such are 
selected as contain the characteristic traits of their authors, both in 
thought and expression, and but few of these extracts have ever seen the 
light in books of selections— none of them have been worn threadbare by 
use, or have lost their freshness by the pupil's familiarity with them in the 
PChool readers. 

It teaches the pupil how the selections are to be studied, soliciting and 
exacting his judgment at every step of the way which leads from the 
author's diction up through his style and thought to the author himself, 
and in many other ways It places the pupil on the best possible footing with 
the authors whose acquaintance it is his business, as well as his pleasure, to 
make. 

Short estimates of the leading authors, made by the best English and 
American critics, have been inserted, most of them contemporary with us. 

The author has endeavored to make a practical, common-sense text- 
book : one that would so educate the student that he would know and 
enjoy good literature. 

" I find the book in Its treatment of English literature superior to any other I 
have examined. Its main feature, which should be the leading one of all similar 
books, is that it is a means to an end, simply a guide-book to the study of English 
literature. Too many students in the past 'have studied, not the literature of the 
English language, but some author's opinion of that literature. I know from ex' 
penence that your method of treatment will prove an eminently successful one.**— • 
James H. S/iults, Frin. of the West High School, Cleveland, 0, 

^AYNARD, Merrill^ d^ Co., New York. 



WORD LESSOIJS : A Complete Speller. 

Adapted for use in the Higher Primary, Intermediate, and Oram- 
ir Grades. Designed to teach the correct Spelling, Pronunciation, 
d Use of such words only as are most common in current literature, 
d as are most likely to be Misspelled, Mispronounced or Misused, 
d to awaken new interest in the study of Synonyms and of Word- 
lalysis. By Alonzo Reed, A.M., joint author of "Graded Lessons 

English," and "Higher Lessons in English." 188 pages, 12mo. 

The book is a complete speller, and was made to supplement th^ 

ading lesson and otner language work. 1st. — By grouping tnose 

fficulties which it would be impossible to overcome if met only 

casionally and incidentally in the reader. 3d. — By presenting devices 

stimulate the pupil, not only to observe the exact form of words, 
it to note carefully their use and different shades of meaning. 3d. — By 
Eording a systematic course of training in pronunciation. 

Word Lessons recognizes work already done in the reader, and 
>es not attempt its repetition as do the old spellers, and other new 
les now demanding attention. 

The author has spared no trouble in his search among the works 

the best writers for their best thoughts, with which to illustrate the 
le of words. Great care has been taken in grading the work to the 
•owing vocabulary of the learner. 



Edward S.Joynes, Professor of Belles 
ettres and English Literature, S. C. 
jllege, Columbia, S. C, says: " I beg 
ive to express my most cordial com- 
endation of the book. It meets, more 
irfectly than any other I have ever seen, 
6 wants of our schools. Wherever I 
ive opportunity, oflSicially or otherwise, 
shall take pleasure in recommending its 
troduction." 

Truman J. Backus, Pres. Packer Col- 
giate Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., says: 
The book has more than met expecta- 



C. P. Colgrove, A.B., Prin. Normal 
School of Upper Iowa University, 
Fayette, Iowa, says : " I am glad to see 
it. It is a move in the right direction. I 
have been teaching spelling from the read- 
ing lesson, but cannot say that I consider 
the method a success. Nine-tenths of our 
students fail in orthogiaphy." 

W. H. Foute, Supt. of Public Instruc- 
tion, Houston, Tex., says: "A thorough 
and careful examination of the matter of 
your book has made me a perfect convert 
to your plan." 



Maynard, Merrill, & Co., New York 



A Text-Book on Rhetoric 

Supplementing the Development of the Science with 
Exhaustive Practice in Composition. 

A Course of Practical Lessons adapted for use in High Scho< 
and Academies, and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. 



BRAINERD KELLOGG, LL.D., 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brookl\ 
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of 
Beed & Kellogg's " Graded Lessons in English'* 
and ''Higher Lessons in English." 



The plan pursued in the book is simple. After fully and clear 
unfolding the principles of the science, the author goes on immediate 
to mark out work for the pupil to do in illustration of what he h; 
learned, and exa<^ts the doing of it, not in the recitation-room, but i 
preparation for it and as the burden of his lesson. 

It is believed that the aim of the study should be to put the pup 
in possession of an art, and that this cannot be done by forcing tt 
science into him through eye and ear, but must largely be accomplis^e 
by drawing it out of him in products through tongue and pen. 



" Kellogg's Rhetoric is evidently the fruit of scholarship and large experienc 
The author has collected his own materials, and disposed of them with the skill c 
a master; his statements are precise, lucid, and sufficiently copious. Nothing 
sacrificed to show; the book is intended for use, and the abundance of exampU 
will constitute one of its chief merits in the eyes of the thorough teacher."— Pre?; 
A. S. Cook, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 

346 pages, 12mo, attractively bound in cloth. 



Maynard, Merrill, & Co., New York. 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 



n 



asses in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. , 



Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 

(Cantos I. and II.) 
Mirlton's Li' Allegro, and II Pen- 

seroso. 
L>ord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 
Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 
Moore's Fire "Worshippers. 

(Lalla Kookh. Selected.) 
Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 
Scott's Marinion. (Selections 

from Canto VI.) 
Scott's L.ay of the ILast Minstrel. 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 
Burns'sCotter'sSaturday Night, 

and other Poems. 
Crabbe's The Village. 
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 

(Abridgment of Part I.) 
Macaulay's Essay on Bunyan's 

Pilgrim's Progress. 
Macaulay's Armada, and other 

Poems. 
Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- 
nice. (Selections from Acts I., 

III.. and IV.) 
Goldsmith's Traveller. 
Hogg's Queen's Wake, andKil- 

meny. 
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 
Addison's Sir Roger de Cover- 
ley. 
Gray's Elegry in a Country 

Churchyard. 
Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Canto 

I.) 
Shakespeare's As You Like It, 

etc. (Selections.) 
Shakespeare's King John, and 

Richard II. (Selections.) 
Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 
ry V., Henry VI. (Selections.) 
: Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 
i "Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 
• Pope's Essay on Criticism. 
' Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

I. and n.) 
! Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 
» Milton's Comus. 
> Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 

Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and 

Tithonus. 



31 Irving's Sketch Book. (Selec- 
tions.) 

33 Dickens's Christmas Carol. 
(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 

(Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of "Wake- 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson's The Two Voices, 

and A Dream of Fair Women. 

37 Memory Quotations. 

38 Cavalier Poets. 

39 Drydeii's Alexander's Feast, 

and MacFlecknoe. 

40 Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 

41 Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hol- 

low^. 
43 Lamb's Tales from Shake- 
speare. 

43 Le Row's How to Teach Read- 

ing. 

44 "Webster's Bunker Hill Ora- 

tions. 

45 The Academy Orthoiipist. A 

Manual of Pronunciation. 

46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hymn 

on the Nativity. 

47 Bryant's Thauatopsis, and other 

Poems. 

48 Ruskin's Modern Painters. 

(Selections.) 

49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 

50 Thackeray's Roundabout Pa- 

pers. 

51 "l\ ebster's Oration on Adams 

and Jefferson. 
53 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Life and Death of 

Jason. 

54 Burke's Speech on American 

Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the Lock. 

56 Tennyson's Elaine. 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the uEneid. 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 

Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 

con. (Condensed.) 
63 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 
lish Version by Rev. R. Potter.M. A. 



(Additional numbers on next page.) 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 

FOR 

lasses in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, P»efatory and 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. . 



Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 

(Cantos I. and II.) 
Milton's Li' Allegro, and II Pen- 

seroso. 
Liord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (.Selected.) 
Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 
Moore's Fire Worshippers. 

(Lal!a Kookh. Selected.) 
Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 
Scott's Marinion. (Selections 

from Canto VI.) 
Scott's L.ay of the ILast Minstrel. 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 
Burns'sCotter'sSaturday Night, 

and other Poems. 
Crabbe's The Village. 
Campbells Pleasures of Hope. 

(Abridgment of Part I.) 
Macaulay's Essay on Bunyan's 

Pilgi-im's Progress. 
Macaulay's Armada, and other 

Poems. 
Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- 
nice. (Selections from Acts I., 
III., and IV.) 
Goldsmith's Traveller. 
< Hogg's Queen's Wake, andKil- 
meny. 
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 
; Addison's Sir Roger de Cover- 
ley, 
t Gray's Elegy in a Country 

Churchyard. 
► Scott'sLady of the liake, (Canto 

I.) 
. Shakespeare's As You liike It, 

etc. (Selections.) 
i Shakespeare's King John, and 

Richard II. (Selections.) 
i Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 
ry V., Henry VI. (Selections.) 
I Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 
J Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 
5 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 
Jf Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

I. and n.) 
$ Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 
i Milton's Comus. 
* Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 
Cotus Eaters, Ulysses, and 
Tithonus. 



31 Irving's Sketch Book. (Selec 

tions.) 
33 Dickens's Christmas Carol, 

(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 

(Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson's The Two Voices 

and A Dream of Fair Women 

37 Memory Quotations. 

38 Cavalier Poets. 

39 Dryden's Alexander's Feast 

and MacFlecknoe. 

40 Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 

41 Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hoi 

low. 
43 Lamb's Tales from Shake 
speare. 

43 Le Row's How to Teach Bead 

ing. 

44 Webster's Bunker Hill Ora 

tions. 

45 The Academy Ortho6pist. A 

Manual of Pronunciation. 

46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hymn 

on the Nativity. 

47 Bryant's Thauatopsis, and other 

Poems. 

48 Ruskiu's Modern Painters. 

(Selections.) 

49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 

50 Thackeray's Roundabout Pa- 

pers. 

51 Webster's Oration on Adams 

and Jefferson. 
53 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Life and Death of 

Jason. 

54 Burke's Speech on American 

Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the Lock. 

56 Tennyson's Elaine. 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the ^neid, 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 

Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 

con. ((Condensed.) 
63 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 
lish Version by Rev. R. Potter.M. A. 



(Additional numbers on next page.) 



English Classic Series-continued. 



63 The Antigone of Sophocles. 

English Version by Thos. Franck- 
lin, D.D. 

64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

(Selected Poems.) 

65 Robert Browning, (Selected 

Poems.) 

66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec'ns.) 

67 Scenes from George £liot's 

Adam Bede. 

68 Matthew Arnold's Culture and 

Anarchy. 

69 DeQuincey's Joan of Arc, 

70 Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil- 

grimage. 

72 Poe's Raven, and other Poems. 

73 & 74 Macaulay's Lord Clive, 

(Double Number.) 

75 "Webster's Reply to Hayne. 

76&77 Macaulay's L.ays of An- 
cient Rome. (Double Number.) 

78 American Patriotic Selections: 

Declaration of Independence, 
Washington's Farewell Ad- 
dress, Lincoln's Gettysburg 
Speech, etc. 

79 & 80 Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

(Condensed.) 

81 & 83 Scott's Marmion. (Con- 
densed.) 

83 & 84 Pope's Essay on Man. 

85 Shelley's Skylark, Adouais, and 

other Poems. 

86 Dickens's Cricket on the 

Hearth. 

87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style. 

88 Lamb's Essays of Elia. 

89 Cowper's Task, Book IL 

90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems. 

91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and 

Sir Galahad. 
93 Addison's Cato. 

93 Irving' s Westminster Abbey, 

and Christmas Sketches. 

94 & 95 Macaulay's Earl of Chat- 

ham. Second Essay.' 

96 Early English Ballads. 

97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey, 

(Selected Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 

99 Caxton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 

101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con- 

densed.) 

103-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- 
ton. 

104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- 
well's Johnson. 



107 Mandeville's Travels and "W 

clifte's Bible. (Selections.) 
108-109 Macaulay's Essay on Fr. 

erick the Great. 
110-111 Milton's Samson Agon 

tes. I 

113-113-114 Franklin's Autobi< 

raphy. 
115-116 Herodotus's Stories 

Croesus, Cyrus, and Babylo) 

117 Irving' s Alhambi-a. 

118 Burke's Present Discontent 

119 Burke's Speech on Concil 

tion with American Coloni 
130 Macaulay's Essay on Byron 
131-133 Motley's Peter the Gre 

133 Emerson's American Schol, 

134 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustu 
135-136 Longfellow's Evangelii 

137 Byron's Childe Harold, Cai 

IV. 

138 Tennyson's The Coming 

Arthur, and The Passing 
Arthur. 

139 Lowell's The Vision of I 

Launfal, and other Poems. 

130 Whittier's Songs of Labor, £ 
other Poems. 

131 Longfellow's The Skeleton 

Armor, and other Poems. 
133 Longfellow's The Belfry 
Bruges, and other Poems. 

133 Longfellow's Building of t 

Ship, Resignation, etc. 

134 Longfellow's The Voices 

the Night. 

Single mimbers, 32 to 64 pagi 
mailing priee, 12 cents per cop 

Double numbers, 73 to 128 2y<fg- 
mailing jprice, 24 cents per cop 



In Prepuration a large numt 
of Selections from Standard Wr 
ings for Supplementary Keadi: 
in Lower Grades, including 



Fairy Tal« 



BI^??.iJt)^c 



Grimm's German 

(Selected.) 
^sop's Fables. (Selected.) 
Arabian Nights. (Selected.) 
Andersen's Danish Fairy 

(Selected.) 
The Nurnberg Stove. By Ouida, 

Special Prices to Teachers. 



Tal< 



RiPTivE Catalogue sent on application. 



